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Money-free Communities

Many are wary of priestcraft among us. I am one of them. I heard an author being interviewed on the radio a few weeks back. He wrote a compilation of all of the statements Jesus made in the New Testament, organized under about 200 topics. He spoke about how important it is for “Christians to have access to the words of Christ,” and how “no one can have eternal life without abiding in His words.”

I immediately thought of the post I linked to above when I began searching for the author’s material — only to find everything leading me to a place to buy his book. One would think that if a person complied such an important index of the saving “words of Christ” — that they would want any believer to have free access to it [Just as Jesus offered free access to his words when he spoke them].

At the author’s Amazon page, I learned that the book he had written previous to the one I was interested in outlines the story of how he flunked out of every job he held in his first six years after college. But then, upon studying Solomon [“the richest man alive“], he found a way to “achieve greater success and happiness than he had ever known — thus making him a millionaire many times over.”

The book discusses each of Solomon’s insights and strategies into attaining wealth with anecdotes about the author’s personal successes and failures — as well as those of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Steven Spielberg.

That was all I needed to know about this man.

Money is a key of discernment:

A true key for discerning a part of Lucifer’s Babylonian control system is the requirement of money. Nothing in Babylon is given as it is sought after or desired — but only as a person has earned it or has the means to purchase it. In contrast, the gifts and powers of God come only thru asking and thru agency. They are freely given and can only be freely distributed.

But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Your theories are very romantic and idealistic. And like all those other great idealistic theories are confounded by the fact that men and women are sinners, we rarely live up to our own ideals, and our incredible powers of rationalization most often outweigh true justice and equality.

Given our flawed natures, biblically-based political theories aren’t particularly realistic to put forth. I can’t help but think that the realistic scenario of your theories would be a decentralized tyranny of very pompous, self-righteous men exercising self-righteous dominion over their families. I’m not sure I would trade that for a centralized church leadership’s more mild tyranny.

Such criticism is likewise leveled at the concept of establishing money-free systems. However, one will find that humans are prepared to work for nothing — given the condition that they can partake for nothing. Or, as Jesus described it:

…freely ye have received, freely give.

For example, this website contains the work of several contributes — all readable for free. Other examples include: filesharing sites, open source programs, Wikipedia, community/volunteer events, church programs, apprenticeships, etc.

Why you won’t hear more about money-free systems:

If any community within a state were to adopt a money-free system, then tax revenues will start to decline. Further, any monetary penalties designed to encourage or discourage certain behaviors [taxes, penalties, duties, fees, etc.] will become largely ineffective methods of control. Such a community will decrease the power of the state and centralized banking interests as a result of increasing personal freedom and independence.

Tribalism is the key to opening up money-free systems:

Typically, even the mention of money will increase the competitiveness in people. Therefore, were a community to develop on the basis of a money-free economy — it would be more likely to engender cooperative behavior. In a money-free community, leaders must find other incentives to encourage members to do tasks they wouldn’t otherwise do for “free” — a task that would require leaders who are willing to serve [instead of rule] and are willing to govern with persuasion, patience, gentleness, kindness, meekness, genuine love, etc.

A money-free community would need great intimacy and connection among the members. LDS Anarchy commented [at a site I do not recommend commenting at]:

The church is lacking in intimacy and connection because we are all still strangers. The only way to achieve Zion, or even a Zion-like atmosphere at church is for the men and women to all be connected to each other through covenants. As it stands, we are connected to Christ through covenants, but not to each other. As long as we remain unfettered by covenant relationships with each other, we will never achieve Zion and our conversations (and actions) will never approach the level of intimacy and sharing required of that ideal.

Only thru the increasing the covenant bonds that connect humans together can Zion begin to emerge as a mode of human organization.

When humans lived in the Edenic state of hunter-gatherer, multihusband-multiwife tribes — currency did not exist. The idea of “having any money” was foreign to Adam — who only kept the tokens associated with his priesthood.

However, the 10,000 year explosion, the dawn of sedentary agriculture, and the associated appearance of states necessitated a commodity that was easy to store and handle in order to facilitate trade among the growing communities of largely un-connected members.

Any return to such a paradisaical lifestyle will only be associated with complimentary return to the manner of connectedness and cooperation humans shared before statism, monogamous family-units, and monetary-based systems of exchange.

As you’ve mentioned that other blog, I recall that in one of the discussions in which I participated on that site, whose women did not like the idea of stewardship and thought it was unjust to have to obey someone else, the following passage of Moby Dick came to mind:

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal masthead. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about–however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way–either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

I’ve read that before — but I don’t remember when. It was probably wherever you linked to it in the past.

It made me think of the language used to describe Adam leaving the Garden of Eden in D&C 29:41

41 Wherefore, I, the Lord God, caused that he should be cast out from the Garden of Eden, from my presence, because of his transgression, wherein he became spiritually dead, which is the first death, even that same death which is the last death, which is spiritual, which shall be pronounced upon the wicked when I shall say: “Depart, ye cursed.“

Thus, here is an account of the Adam planet [earth — e.g. 1 Cor. 15, The first [Adam] is of the earth, earthy.] being removed "from the inside [of] the electrical cocoon of a brown dwarf star” by the actions of disruptive planets of Satan. This “fall” placed the planet outside the “chromosphere of such a star — or outside the presence of the Lord.

Such that now Adam [earth] orbits in its current location — as “the result of a recent cosmic “traffic accident”.“

Yes, I mentioned that link to show that the hunter-gatherer concept you’ve given in this and other posts is not as far-fetched as many LDS might think. Earth started out with riotous growth and it will return to it again, in the Millennium. Modern agriculture is unnecessary–indeed, it would be an obstacle–in such an environment.

I have a feeling that people, (in particular, LDS), have a hard time grasping the concepts put forth in this post (and others like it) because we don’t have a clear idea of what the future should look like. We see agriculture and money being passed around and know that these things have existed for thousands of years and we hear of prophets and righteous men and women tilling the ground, using money, etc., and we think that the gospel is designed for an agricultural, money-based lifestyle.

The gospel is flexible, adaptable to the conditions that exist among men, but it is not designed to leave men in those conditions, but to allow men to use the truths, principles and powers found in the gosepl to change them so that they match those found in the heavens.

Unless we look forward and use our imagination to envision what the future is supposed to look like, how in the world can we ever work to remove ourselves from our present, fallen condition into a more exalted, heavenly one? It seems to me that mankind is largely spinning their wheels and letting the future bring what it may, without actually striving to shape it themselves.

I see only one group of people that is actively trying to carve out a future according to a plan: the secret combinations of the world. They decide how they want the world to be and then they use their power, influence and money to make it happen. The rest of us just live out our lives one day at a time.

That’s okay for the rest of the Gentiles, but the Mormon Gentiles have been given the restored gospel and should be more enlightened than that. We’ve got everything we need to establish the future God has designed for the Earth. We just need to organize ourselves into cohesive, gospel-based tribes and make it happen.

Wow. The fifth paragraph down in your reply was amazing. Those who hold the gospel encourage themselves to get a good education, find a good job, and “endure to the end.” Meanwhile, Satan’s forces are busy planning and conquering the world. We are the ones who hold the kingdom. We should be breaking down Babylon and conquering the world. But who needs that, just so long as women only wear one set of earringsl.

And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself.

I think of what has been lost of the fullness of the gospel and even the order in which they were lost. I don’t know all of them but here are two big ones. The law of consecration and the law of plural marriage. Living the law of consecration was the first. With the loss of having all things in common the church suffered a great loss of the manifestations of the spirit which is needed to be directed by God.

I was already striving to live this law before encountering LDSA. Now I see how I must do it independent of the LDS church and in my tribe. I learned years ago that as members of the LDS church we could consecrate all our excess to the church via fast offerings. However the hard fact is that the LDS church is in the process of spending about 3 billion dollars on bringing commercial enterprises close to the temple and yet not a single penny has been allotted to implement the law of consecration. What would it do with your money you consecrate via the fast offering fund?

That is why I am implementing my plans to do this in my tribe as fast as possible.
IN regards to plural marriage on the day that “My prayers are largely ineffective” was posted the Lord gave me a revelation and told me I was to challenge others to become converted to the law of plural marriage.
Until we are converted we will never be ready to practice it. So of course I have been striving to convert others to live the law of consecration with me already. We will be banished as heretics if we try to in our wards teach people to practice the law of plural marriage. But since the reality is that the scriptures teach plural marriage and a form of it is still practiced in the LDS church today we can’t be (or shouldn’t be) punished for teaching conversion to it as a principle. Planting this seed of truth can help awaken people to the awfulness of our situation.
And it is absolutely essential that we truly be converted not just in an intellectual way but converted to the degree that we want to practice it because it is of God and the lack of practicing it is a barrier to moving towards Him. And a barrier to the establishment of Zion as plural marriage is a celestial principle.
We could easily be within 5 years of the physical start of the gathering to Jackson County, MO. Which is to say we could be within 5 years of the destruction of the USA as a nation. Zion will be built up to those who are converted to celestial principles and who are striving to live them. This is the way we shape the future. Become the receptacle for God to place the blessing of His laws into our lives and He will do it.
As part of this conversion we implement the manner of prayer in our lives and we will project those celestial principles into existence.

The site goes on to tell about the break-up of the polar configuration of Saturn — the chaotic interactions between Earth and Venus and Mars — our arrival at the present state of our heavens — and the attempts of secret combinations to “call back” Saturn and restore that Edenic period.

I don’t know why I didn’t include these scriptures from 2 Nephi in this post:

the spirit is the same
yesterday
today
and forever
and the way is prepared
from the fall of man
and salvation is free2 Nephi 2:4

and

come my brethren
every one that thirsteth
come ye to the waters
and he that hath no money
come
buy and eat
yea
come buy wine and milkwithout money
and without price
whereforedo not spend money
for that which is of no worth
nor your labor
for that which cannot satisfy2 Nephi 9:50

and

he commandeth none
that they shall not partake of his salvation
behold
doth he cry unto any
saying

depart from me

behold
I say unto you

nay

but he saith

come unto me
all ye ends of the earth
buy milk and honeywithout money
and without price

I thought of the author of a Christian book [that I mentioned at the start of this OP] when I read this quote:

To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all. A message from the gods should be delivered at once. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honorable to which a man can be called?

Approaching Zion by Nibley is well worth a read when contemplating economic issues of the day. It really changed my view on things, especially given the concept in the temple that “anything can be had for money”.